Breaking on Through

There’s a joke we heard our first week in the UK. We don’t remember the details, but the punchline was something like, “Oh, she’s only lived here for fifty years, she hasn’t any friends yet.”

We *thought* it was a joke. It isn’t, not really. It’s a fact: Americans of all ages are more at ease with strangers. This isn’t to say that Glaswegians are unfriendly; they aren’t. They’re the first to help you if you ask for directions (several of them arguing and giving you conflicting theories), and gripe about the weather with you at the bus stop, but there’s a reserve, and conversational topics are limited. Many of them just sort of… watch you.

With the University students, it’s been a bit different; younger people are easier crossing social lines in most societies, but the adults still just kind of stare. Until… the day they don’t. Until you have what can only be termed a ‘breakthrough.’

D. came home from classes one day, thoroughly bewildered. “People are smiling at me,” he said nervously. “I kept checking to see if I’d spilled something on my shirt.” It was sort of alarming, from the way he described it, and T. wondered if it wasn’t something more than just… familiarity. But even kids in school were chatting with him on the road, shopkeepers and professors and other students — were all suddenly… friendly. We figured it was a change in the weather and left it at that.

Even Van noticed when he was visiting. “People stare at you, T.,” he remarked, and she sighed and shrugged, and muttered something about standing out as much as a raisin in a bowl of milk, which, with the number of Indians, Nigerians, Ghanans, Asians and others was an exaggeration. She was used to it, and tried not to let it unnerve her, because people probably just… didn’t realize they were doing it (except for the ones who blatantly gawped, to which she attributed some sort of mental distress). Even at the University, when Van sat in the audience at the concert, he was roundly ignored by people sitting only inches away from him, where in the U.S., a seatmate might discuss the performers or their enjoyment of the music. He was a little startled by the silence, but D&T are quite used to it.

At least they were.

T. isn’t sure whether to attribute it to the proximity of the end of term, the sentimental feelings of closing out a Season, the fact that it was pouring rain and the planets realigned — something changed. In the green room before the performance, women in their fifties approached her and chatted casually about the “moving text” of the Rutter, and their hopes for next season. A bevy of blondes admired her trousers, and were startled when she admitted she’d painted the silver roses on them that morning (bored female with fabric paint. Dangerous). University students chatted with her, leaned against her and studied, and asked her questions they could have asked in the previous twenty weeks about where she was from, whether she was a student, what she was doing while she wasn’t studying, and whether she’d be getting out to the highlands and the rest of Scotland come summer, or going away. T. exchanged phone numbers, email addresses, embraces and bewildered glances with the room at large. What, she wondered, was UP with everyone?

She’s still not sure, and considers it a fluke. D. thinks she’s just finally had her breakthrough.

Now that Van has come and gone, the ridiculousness of the flat situation has been underscored. The fact that no two people can a.) bathe and bathe, b.) bathe and run the tap, c.)run the tap and the washer, without a serious drop in water pressure hadn’t been as obvious as when there was a third person. We all experienced some amusing moments of communal living that might not be as amusing without as good-natured a visitor. Thus, the hunt is on for another flat, and it is hoped that some nearer to the University will open up near the beginning of the summer. In the meantime, the boxes are out again, and T. is making a valiant attempt to whittle down a few more of her books…

PS – Another issue that has been raised is shoes — D&T are literally walking out of theirs, and are in need of suggestions for good sturdy walking shoes. Anyone?

– D & T

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